Welcome again to Chain Response.
Final week, we talked about privateness in crypto and the way it’s typically at odds with regulation. This week, we’re protecting a larger-than-life founder who is probably searching for redemption by way of web3.
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there’s at all times a crypto angle
A weekly window into the ideas of senior crypto reporter Anita Ramaswamy:
It’s a lesson all of us discovered over the past crypto bull run — crypto is a widely known refuge for these seeking to reinvent themselves. WeWork founder Adam Neumann isn’t any exception. Neumann made waves within the tech world this week when it was revealed that his new startup, centered on residential actual property communities, had simply obtained a $350 million funding from Andreessen Horowitz — the biggest examine the VC agency has ever written, although it was unclear how a lot of that was fairness versus debt. The corporate, Stream, earned a $1 billion valuation earlier than, effectively, really doing something (apart from shopping for up condo models), in keeping with The New York Instances.
In a little bit of an ironic twist, the brand new enterprise goals to aim to resolve the housing disaster, a plan touted by Marc Andreessen himself in a weblog publish asserting the deal. Andreessen is the VC who, earlier this month, was discovered to have fought tooth and nail to stop reasonably priced housing models from being inbuilt his rich hometown of Atherton, California. Preliminary particulars, although, had been scant as to how precisely Neumann’s firm would really handle the disaster, exterior of some imprecise commentary about renters not with the ability to profit from proudly owning their residence fairness.
As if all that wasn’t sufficient to absorb, now, there’s a crypto angle.
Forbes reported this week that Neumann’s startup, known as Stream, plans to launch a digital pockets for cryptocurrencies. However there appears to be little to no overlap between the pockets product and the agency’s said focus in actual property tech, because the pockets gained’t enable folks to make rental funds on their Stream-owned flats by way of crypto.
The corporate has, in keeping with Forbes, been recruiting candidates by describing its enterprise as a “subsequent technology multi-family property administration system” that would come with a tokenized rewards program and crypto fee capabilities. A Stream spokesperson later advised Forbes that the job description was largely false and blamed the snafu on an exterior recruiter the corporate had labored with.
It’s nonetheless not clear how huge of a job crypto is to play on Stream’s roadmap, however the spokesperson offered Forbes with a brand new job description that merely centered on “expertise” in residential actual property relatively than crypto or web3 particularly.
This isn’t Neumann’s first rodeo within the wild west of web3. He raised $70 million, additionally led by a16z, for Flowcarbon in Might, a startup that meant to tokenize carbon credit on the blockchain. Flowcarbon has since halted a deliberate token sale, citing averse market circumstances, and appears to have eliminated references to Neumann from its crew web page regardless of itemizing him as a co-founder of the enterprise on the time the a16z funding was introduced. Curiously, the Stream announcement this week from a16z cited Stream as Neumann’s first enterprise since WeWork, as if he was by no means concerned with Flowcarbon in any respect.
Whereas loads of founders with substance and potential proceed to be ignored by at this time’s VC ecosystem, a16z’s option to make such an enormous wager on the infamous Neumann is telling of buyers’ priorities. Although if one good factor comes out of this enterprise, maybe it’ll be a gripping TV sequence.
the newest pod
Jacquelyn and Anita took the reins on this week’s information as soon as once more whereas Lucas was out, and the primary merchandise on their agenda was fairly juicy.
Do Kwon, the disgraced founder behind the Terra stablecoin collapse, gave his first interview since he went into hiding after shedding billions of {dollars} on behalf of buyers. He sat down with Coinage, an NFTV present from startup Trustless Media, to speak about his function in triggering crypto’s greatest crash.
After recapping the highlights reel from the Do Kwon interview, Anita and Jacquelyn talked about Galaxy Digital making an attempt to say “jk lol” after it agreed to accumulate crypto custodian BitGo, and ran by way of each unhealthy and doubtlessly excellent news for Crypto.com.
You should definitely tune in for our visitor interview subsequent Tuesday during which Anita can be chatting with Devin Lewtan, cofounder of web3 media manufacturing studio Mad Realities.
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comply with the cash
The place startup cash is shifting within the crypto world:
- Decentralized communications platform Satellite tv for pc IM closed a $10.5 million spherical led by Framework Ventures and Multicoin Capital.
- Rocketplace raised $9 million in seed funding to construct the “Constancy for crypto.”
- Tencent veterans at .bit secured $13 million to construct cross-chain decentralized identities.
- Binance Labs made a strategic funding in web3 infrastructure protocol Ankr.
- Solana-focused Jito Labs raised $10 million in a Sequence A led by Multicoin Capital and Framework Ventures.
- Gaming studio Murasaki closed a €1.5 million seed spherical led by Japanese Incubate Fund.
- B2B web3 knowledge evaluation agency Datawisp introduced in $3.6 million in a seed spherical led by Coinfund.
- Animation studio Invisible Universe raised $12 million in Sequence A funding led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six to launch new web3 IP.
- Fractional NFT platform Tessera (fka Fractional) raised a $20 million Sequence A led by Paradigm.
- Starknet-based gaming DAO MatchboxDAO raised $7.5 million led by Starkware.
This checklist was compiled with info from Messari in addition to DailyTech’s personal reporting.
TC+ evaluation
Right here’s a few of this week’s crypto evaluation accessible on our subscription service TC+ from senior reporter Jacquelyn Melinek:
Polygon’s head of investments stays ‘extremely bullish on web3’
The crypto market could also be in limbo between a deep bear market and restoration, however that hasn’t stopped buyers from deploying capital into the house. “Within the grand scheme of issues, nothing has modified concerning Polygon’s long-term mission, bear markets or not,” Shreyansh Singh, head of investments at Polygon, stated to DailyTech.
Anthony Hopkins sees NFTs as ‘artwork in a brand new format’
As celebrities and athletes alike dip into the crypto sphere to endorse tokens or firms, others need to NFTs as a option to have interaction with followers. The most recent entrant is two-time Academy Award-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, who partnered with NFT digital collectible firm Orange Comet to launch his personal sequence, The Everlasting Assortment. “NFTs, for me, are a clean canvas to create artwork in a brand new format,” Hopkins shared with DailyTech.
Crypto scams have declined, however hackers stay resilient in bearish markets
On the subject of crime, illicit exercise continues to be ample no matter crypto volatility, in keeping with a brand new Chainalysis report. However there’s nuance within the obvious downturn in illicit exercise — some subsectors of crypto-based crime have elevated in 2022, whereas others declined.
Open supply software program is required to stop future crypto hacks, Polygon CISO says
As 2022 continues to rack up costly exploits, many individuals within the crypto house are questioning what might be performed to stop these hacks sooner or later. Certain, they’ll emphasize the significance of schooling and defending your personal digital property — however what else? The reply is likely to be by way of initiatives using open supply software program, Mudit Gupta, chief info safety officer at Polygon, advised DailyTech.
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